Bachelor Auction
by Hannah Taylor1
Summary: Delena multichapter fic. Mystic Falls hosts a second bachelor auction and Damon is less than thrilled with the results of the bidding. Elena steps in to cheer him up and to tease him with a big secret. T rating refers to content in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Many thanks to SecretIndulgence24 for all her expert help. The story wouldn't exist if I hadn't had her guidance.**

_Chapter 1_

"Hey."

Damon glanced up from his bourbon, finding Elena in the doorway looking typically cute in a dark pink blouse and black scarf, and annoyingly perky. She was grinning so widely that by the time she bounced over to his side, the gleam in her eyes had already danced halfway across the room and reached him.

He scowled, uninterested in cheering up for the present moment, and knocked back the dregs of his drink before morosely replying.

"Hey."

She hopped onto the stool beside his and just sat there, beaming. Waiting for him to bite. Obviously. Not at all ironic …

Damon sighed, unable to resist. "If this the part where you beg me to guess and I refuse and you beg some more and finally I give in and get it wrong and you make me try again… let's just skip all that, shall we?" He frowned at the ring his drink had left on the counter. "Why are you so excited?"

"Who turned the dial up to broody?" she countered. "You're giving Stefan a run for his money."

"Touche." He raised his empty glass in the direction of the bar tender. "Keep 'em comin'."

"Diet Coke, please." Elena spun her stool, leaned back against the counter and observed him curiously. "Does this mood by any chance have something to do with today's bachelor auction?"

The vampire drew patterns with his fingertip through the line of water in front of him. "Maybe."

"So, what happened?" She shoved his shoulder playfully. "Did Mrs. Lockwood buy you a second time?"

"Ha!" Damon retaliated by flicking water droplets in her direction. "_Not _happening ever again."

Carol Lockwood had set her eyes on him the minute he moved back to Mystic Falls and had never let up the pressure since. She wasn't unattractive, but the constant neediness set Damon's teeth on edge—never a good thing when you're carrying a vampire gene. His lone date with her several years back had been an exercise in endless self-restraint, and not in the way he usually relished.

"Then what?" Elena accepted her drink as it arrived, picked out several ice cubes and promptly dropped them down Damon's shirt before he even saw it coming.

"_What the hell?"_

She sipped her soda innocently and watched with those big, beautiful eyes as Damon jumped up and contorted his body in a vain attempt to escape the frigid objects slithering across his skin. The maneuver required him to untuck his shirt and do a hip shimmy, which drew wolf whistles from several women. He wiggled and bucked and writhed, providing an undignified spectacle for the amusement of the Grill's other patrons, until the ice cubes finally made their way out and onto the carpet.

Damon pointedly took a seat several stools away before leaning over to reclaim his drink. Elena slid the glass just out of reach and waggled her eyebrows at him as she took a sip.

He glared at her. "What is _with_ you today?"

"You're seriously not even going to try and retaliate?" She shrugged and lifted the straw to her lips. "Musthave been a really bad day …"

In spite of Damon's desire to be left alone to sulk for the remainder of the evening, her sheer impishness was evaporating his irritation on contact. She was completely under his skin, so deep that he couldn't scratch the itch away if he tried.

He eyed his pilfered bourbon. "You wanna play? Fine."

Reaching behind him, Damon plucked a bowl of peanuts off a table and lobbed one at her. Elena caught it as it bounced off the counter, popped it into her mouth, and followed with a sip of bourbon. Expressionless, she grabbed a nearby salt shaker, inverted its contents into the alcoholic drink, and sent it sliding Damon's way.

Wordlessly, he dumped the remaining peanuts in and shoved the glass back in her direction.

Equally silent, Elena plucked half a peanut from the mess, inserted it into her straw and blew it, pea-shooter style, into Damon's bicep.

He raised an eyebrow thoughtfully, eyeing the sticky spot now on his sleeve, and contemplated a nearby Jell-O shot that somebody hadn't finished. Leaning forward, he snagged it and poured its gooey contents onto Elena's lap. Then, while she leaped off her stool and did a little impromptu dance of her own, he coolly stole her soda and drained it.

The bartender came over, scolding at the ready. Damon cut him off at the pass.

"You didn't see anything. The spill was an accident that you'll clean up later. Now you're going to go away and not come back unless I say something."

The guy was parroting back his instructions obediently when Elena hopped into Damon's lap. He blinked, taken more offguard this time than he had been with the ice.

"What—"

Perched on his knee, Elena blew him a kiss. If he hadn't been so seriously distracted, the vampire would definitely have caught the palm holding a teaspoon of pepper before she got it anywhere close to him.

"_Elena!"_

She was off and running before he started sneezing, but even a stealth spice attack couldn't keep him from catching up very quickly.

As she jogged through the parking lot, Damon materialized in front of her. She had the nerve to look totally unafraid when he grabbed her arm.

"You _sneeze _little brat _sneeze,_" he growled, backing her against a car. _Sneeze. Sneeze_. "You wanna _sneeze _tell me _sneeze _what's _sneeze DAMMIT _going on? _Sneeze._"

Elena reached into her pocket and pulled out a napkin. She held it out, grinning. "Why were you so mad about the auction?"

Damon snatched the napkin away. "Only one person bid _sneeze _on me. It _sneeze _kinda sucked, okay? Losing my status as _sneeze _Mystic Falls' most eligible bachelor."

"Who was it?" she inquired, folding her arms across her chest and looking for all the world like she hadn't just aggravated a man who could break her neck without even trying. "How much did you sell for?"

He wiped his streaming eyes and tried to make sense of this newly playful, confident creature standing in front of him. His relationship with Elena had improved immeasurably with Stefan's departure, but this evening's events were far from ordinary.

"Some random stranger _sneeze _visiting the historical society." He framed her body on either side with his arms and tried to look mean, but the threatening was rather diminished with his continued sneezing_. _ "Bid $100, which was apparently the most anybody _sneeze _was willing to pay."

Elena trailed her fingers down his chest lightly. "So you know nothing about who you'll be going on a date with?"

"Less than nothing," Damon muttered, watching her hands dazedly. "I don't even have a name yet. _Sneeze. _Elena, what are you doing?"

"Trying to make you feel better?"

"By attacking my sinuses?"

She patted his bicep comfortingly. "When's the date?"

"In three days." He glared at her suspiciously. "Why are you so interested?"

"Call it morbid curiosity." She ducked out from under his improvised cage. "Either you'll wind up liking her and compel her to be your girlfriend or she'll turn up dead."

"Ouch." Damon winced. "Harsh much?"

"I'm sorry." Her tone changed, returning to the softer, less brazen Elena he was accustomed to. "That was mean."

"Just a bit." He swatted her behind lightly. "But true."

"You haven't killed anybody in ages." She slid her arm through his and smiled apologetically.

He started them walking in the direction of her car. "Don't be so sure of that."

"You haven't," she insisted. "Why do you have to pretend otherwise?"

The vampire went for a sarcastic drawl to keep her from hearing how affected he was by her newfound belief in him. "It keeps you on your toes around me." Before she could pursue the conversation and ruin an unusually pleasant evening, he continued, "So. Who fed you tequila worms tonight?" In response to her puzzled look, he nodded his head in the direction they'd come. "Back at the bar. That's a side I haven't seen much of."

"It's a side I haven't seen in a long time myself."

"What brought it on?"

"I don't know." She rested her head against his shoulder as they walked. "I just woke up this morning and felt … happy."

They'd spent the previous night hanging out, as they had most of the long summer's evenings, and a small hope flickered through Damon that maybe he had played some small part in helping her regain that happiness.

"I'm glad." Damon leaned down to brush his lips across her hair very lightly. "Goofy Elena was a whole new kind of sexy."

She poked him in the ribs. "So you won't be mad if I tell you I know who won you at the auction?"

"What?" He stopped in his tracks and looked down at her.

Elena pulled away, that playful spark back in her eyes again. "I can't tell you though."

"Oh, don't even!"

For the second time that evening, she darted away. He sped in front of her, blocking her escape, and narrowed his eyes menacingly. "Tell me."

"Can't."

Damon advanced on her, glowering. "Tell me."

She held her ground and stood toe-to-toe with him. "Nope."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because it's fun to know something you don't for a change," Elena smirked. "And because I promised."

It was hard to be mad at her when she was so adorably giddy. Damon mulled the situation over for a moment and tried for a compromise. "Can you at least tell me if it's somebody I've met?"

"Yes."

He considered her response. "Yes, you can tell me, or yes, she and I have met?"

She smirked. "Yes, I can tell you, but I'm not going to."

Used to getting his way, he caught her face in one large hand, tilted it up toward his, and commanded, "_Tell me."_

"I'm wearing vervain," Elena reminded him mildly, not fazed in the least. She started walking again, dodging his halfhearted attempt to block her.

Damon scowled and stalked alongside her. "She sent a messenger to bid on me. Why?"

"She didn't want you to know who she was ahead of time, obviously."

"_Why_? Is she some psycho witch bitch out to kill me?" Amore terrifying thought occurred to him. "Wait, wait, wait. Is _she _a _he_?"

She laughed. "She is most definitely a she."

"Then is she ancient?" he pressed. "Does she need dusting? I'm not into Ming vases."

"Damon," Elena rolled her eyes. "Trust me. You're an antique by comparison."

That was somewhat reassuring. He'd had his fill of older women.

"Is she ugly?"

"No …"

"Is she hot?"

They halted at Elena's car and she declined to answer until she'd extracted her keys.

"I think you'll think she's pretty."

Damon held the door open. "Do I know her?"

"I already told you." Elena climbed inside and rolled down the window. "I'm not saying."

"What about where we're going? Can you tell me that?"

"Nope."

He slapped the side of the car irritably. "Oh, _come on!"_

She started the engine, grinning. "See you tomorrow, if you haven't fled town already."

"Wait!" he yelled after her. "Do I have a reason for fleeing? You never answered me about the witch! _Elena!"_

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**A/N: Next chapter will be posted no later than Friday and probably sooner.**


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

The phone rang, jangling Damon's already irritable nerves.

"Where are you?" he demanded, sloshing bourbon into a glass. "You're supposed to be here in case this woman tries any of Bonnie's juju magic."

Elena's amused snicker filled his ear. "She's not a witch, Damon. I promise."

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to be wearing," he snapped, downing the shot and pouring another immediately. "Do I need to secrete stakes in an evening jacket? Or shove a couple of silver bullets in my jeans?"

"If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were as nervous as a guy going on his first date," she teased.

"There's a reason I don't do blind dates," he retorted, setting the glass down so hard the bottles around it rattled. "If I can't see them and they can't see me, there's a whole lot of groping happening, and that's really _iffy_ if I don't even know my own date's species!"

"Did you decide on flowers or not?"

He'd argued with her for the last 48 hours about whether he should buy roses for someone who might very well have a pollen allergy.

"I went with—"

"I see her," Elena cut in.

"What?" Damon looked up from the mirror he was grimacing into. "Where are you?"

"I'm out front, making sure she didn't bring any werewolf allies. Relax, Damon. She's getting out of her car. Wearing jeans. "

He yanked on his leather jacket and sped toward the front door, listening to Elena's narration.

"Walking up the driveway. And … she's arriving at your doorstep."

Deciding he didn't need to completely terrify—or anger—whoever was waiting for him, Damon pulled up short, took a moment to collect himself and the flowers, then opened the door with admirable calm.

He frowned. "Wait—where's—_Oh." _When the penny dropped, it was more like a cascade of spare change.

Taking the vampire off guard was no easy feat, and she'd managed it so completely that Damon couldn't even begrudge Elena the enormous, triumphant grin she was wearing in addition to an appealingly scoop-necked red tank, dark brown jacket, and skinny blue jeans.

"Pretty flowers." His date pointed. "Are those for me?"

Damon shook his head, raised a wait-a-minute finger, and shook his head again, still trying to get a handle on things. "You," he said slowly, "played me."

"Either that," Elena made an unsuccessful grab for the bouquet, "or I chased off your witch and she's somewhere close by getting ready to send a lightning bolt through me."

"Why?"

"She's jealous of me," she snatched again for the flowers and missed, "getting to spend quality time with the town's hottest supernatural being."

"Elena," he warned, holding the African daisies just out of reach.

"Give me the flowers or I say nothing," she retorted, making a third futile attempt to outdo his vampire speed.

Deciding that a new tactic was in order, Damon lowered the bouquet. Elena lunged for it and he pulled it away, catching her as she tripped and stumbled. The door behind him, partially ajar already, fell open under the impact of both their weights and he stumbled backwards, taking her with him. They lurched unsteadily for a second, swaying in the foyer until Damon regained control of his feet.

He tossed the flowers onto a nearby table and helped Elena get her balance, his arm locking around her waist and entrapping her against his body. She planted her hands on his chest and scowled up at him.

Dropping all pretense of play, Damon smoothed the hair back from her face and stared into her eyes intently. "Elena. Why?"

"I don't know." She tried to duck her head and Damon nudged her chin back up with his fingertips, lightly tracing the soft skin at her jaw line with his thumb.

Hope collided head on with past memories, warning him not to read much into anything, but Damon was too far gone down this road not to keep walking.

"No." His hand moved to her shoulder and rested there, anchoring him. "You don't get to play that game. Not this time. You bid $100 at an auction to go on a date with me even though all summer long you've been feeding me the just friends shtick. What changed?"

Her irate expression slowly vanished, replaced by uncertainty. "I—it was—because—I didn't—" Elena shoved hard against his chest in a useless attempt to break free before exploding, "I thought of you going out to dinner with somebody else and it upset me, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Precisely." He crossed his arms and regarded her with a mixture of amusement and disbelief that she could still be so blind to his feelings. "You thought my dinner date's _climax _was going to be between the sheets."

Elena's voice dripped hurt and sarcasm. "Isn't that your usual pattern, Damon? Any available distraction is fair game, especially if she's blonde and ditzy?"

Damon rapidly worked his way through a gamut of emotions that he had little experience processing before finally settling on incredulity.

"You're jealous."

"Don't flatter yourself," she snarled, shoving against him futilely. "Let me go, Damon."

"Elena." He corralled her flailing hands and trapped them against his chest. "Those girls were—I was _trying_ to keep out of your way, spectacularly unsuccessfully, if you didn't notice." Damon shook her lightly by the shoulders, simultaneously exasperated and elated. "Since you and Stefan split and he decided to run off with Katherine, it's been nothing but you and me. Why would I need distracting?"

She pursed her lips, the anger in her eyes slowly dying away. "I know I've been keeping you at arm's length, Damon. And you've been really good about it. But I know you. You're not one to—"

"One to what, Elena?" he interrupted. "One to stay faithful?"

"Damon, that's not what I meant—we're not—"

"_Aren't we?"_ Damon raised an eyebrow. "Let's see. Staying up till 3:00 a.m. playing cards. Dinner. Football games. Breakfast. Movies. Lunch, brunch, and ice cream in between. Don't look now, but I _think_ that's my belt you're wearing and your pajama top just might be under my pillow where you left it yesterday. Oh, that's right … how many times have we fallen asleep in each other's beds? Maybe the physical part of things isn't firmly established, but yeah, Elena, I'd say we are definitely "are-ing."

Having gone for broke and risked everything, he braced himself and waited, eyes moving across Elena's face for clues to how much he'd thrown away. The crease appeared between her eyebrows, the one that said she was confused. Her eyes, usually so easy to read, gave him nothing but a blank slate. She stuck out her chin, and that's when relief hit because the gesture was as familiar to Damon as her breathing. That wasn't giving in. It was Elena getting ready to make a stand for something.

"This was the conversation I was planning on having at the end of our date."

He blinked, taken by surprise yet again. Elena took advantage of the moment to pull away and wander over to the table. She picked up the flowers and buried her nose in them.

"Mmmm. Good choice." Still nose-deep in delicate white petals, she glanced up at Damon. "You know. We can still rescue this dying date … if you're willing."

"A date on life support?" Damon waved a hand in acknowledgment of his unique abilities. "Leave it to me."

"Damon, I'm serious."

"So am I," he retorted. "I'm not going to let it go this time, Elena. You bid on me and you just admitted you were jealous seeing me with other women. That tells me your feelings are a little past the platonic stage."

"I'm not asking you to let it go. I wouldn't have bid on you if I didn't want to talk. I'm just asking for you to wait until later in the evening before we discuss … things."

"Things," he repeated dryly.

"Us. I want to talk about us, Damon." Elena put the flowers down and faced him, their eyes squarely meeting. "And we will, I promise. But there's something I really want to show you first. It's important to me."

Something in her eyes stopped him from making any of his usual glib comments. That, combined with her acknowledgment—_finally_—that there was something between them beyond friendship, was enough to silence Damon's usually acerbic side.

"I'm good with that compromise," he said gruffly, unsettled by hope's sudden reappearance in his repertoire of emotions after so many decades of absence.

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	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

"So." Damon sprawled comfortably in the passenger's seat, long limbs stretched in front of him. "Where are we headed, exactly?"

"It's a surprise." Elena stopped at a red light and glanced at him. "Comfy?"

He tucked an arm behind his head and shoved the seat back another inch. "Very."

"I hope you're hungry." She started forward again.

"Depends." Damon raised an eyebrow. "Who did the cooking?"

Her lack of culinary prowess was borderline legendary.

"Not me, I promise."

"No crunchy spaghetti? Bummer." He reached for her iPod in the console.

She grimaced. "That was a one time thing."

"That's right." He scanned through her playlists. "The one time you cooked for me and the one time in history that a vampire got food poisoning. Interesting music selection."

"Bonnie downloaded a bunch of stuff I haven't even looked at yet."

"Tiffany?" Damon asked interestedly, sensing some serious blackmail potential. "Bonnie listens to Tiffany?"

"No clue." Elena shrugged. "Maybe that's the soundtrack Caroline used for the 60s dance?"

"Except Tiffany was late 80s," he pointed out dryly, hitting play. "I _might _have been there when this became a hit."

The familiar drumbeat started.

"You?" Elena tapped her horn at an overly slow driver. "At a Tiffany concert? Seriously?"

_Children behave … that's what they say when we're together …_

"Young girls screaming," Damon waved his hands in imitation.

_And watch how you play … they don't understand and so we're running just as fast as we can_

"Lithe bodies bouncing," he did a pseudo-hand jive slash shimmy in his seat.

_Holding on to one another's hands._

"All that teenage angst just_ dripping…"_

_Trying to get away into the night and then you put your arms around me and we tumble to the ground …_

Elena reached over and killed the music, groaning. "No way."

"Come on." Damon pulled a sad face. "What's not to love?"

"That visual of you at the mall prowling for a dinner date… not pretty."

"I didn't hurt anybody," he protested, hands raised in self-defense. "I was at the mall when all these girls randomly started gathering around a stage with this frizzy-haired chick dressed in sparkly purple. It was entertaining." Damon scowled out the window, good mood dissipating. "No blood was taken or exchanged unless you count the girl Stefan was stalking." It was a low blow, but his wounded pride tended not to think before speaking.

"Stefan." Elena turned the car down a dirt road, eyes darting toward him in the rearview mirror. "Stefan was there?"

"We weren't … interacting at the time. I was in Minneapolis for personal reasons and he happened to be at the same mall at the same time." His mind flashed back to spotting his brother's blond head at the fringes of the teenage crowd. "Which is a big coincidence, if you think about it, but the one behind it wasn't me."

"What was he doing?"

"You know already."

She slowed and started down a short hill studded with gravel. "What was he doing, Damon?"

"Look, Elena." Damon sighed, already regretting saying anything. "He was off the Bambi juice temporarily. You've seen how he gets."

"He grabbed one of the teenagers."

"Obviously." Damon eyed her with concern. "The crowd was an opportunity."

The car shuddered as it lurched down the small but steep incline, requiring Elena's full focus. It wasn't until she'd gotten to the bottom and made a right onto yet another dirt track that she spoke again.

"Did he kill her?"

"He didn't get a chance." Damon looked around at the forest she was guiding them toward, not one he was familiar with. "I had what I _thought _was a promising lead on breaking Katherine free. Stefan was going to attract some seriously unnecessary attention my direction if he decided to go into one of his little feeding frenzies … so I stopped him."

"How?"

He sighed, aware this whole conversational slant was his fault and hating it nevertheless. "A little switch and bait. The brother he was stalking in exchange for his human prey…" he saw her blank look and elaborated reluctantly. "Stefan was in one of his 'brothers should be best buddies mode.' He tracked me all the way to Minneapolis, then lost my scent. I saw him at the mall, he had that Bela Lugosi glint …I let him see me. Girl went free, and I had to put up with several days of Stefan at his psychotic worst until I gave him the slip. Again." Before she could ask any further questions, he threw in one of his own, "Where is this place?"

The forest had by now closed in around them so completely that he couldn't see behind them because of the heavy brush, nor did he have much visibility in front, because of thick branches hanging so low that they battered the car on every side, impeding its passage.

Elena swerved to avoid an especially large branch and collided with another that was just as heavy.

"Whoa!" Damon exclaimed in alarm, reaching over to grab the steering wheel and steady it as they lurched violently. "Easy! Spending a date in traction is a real buzz kill, people tell me. Is this what it's like the whole way?"

"I don't know." She idled the engine. "I haven't been here in years."

He frowned. "Full points for date originality. Not so much for planning. I don't think this car is going to get much further without needing Triple A."

"Yeah …" Elena looked around at the dark canopy. "Do you mind walking?"

"Not if you know where we're going." Damon scrutinized her face. "You don't, do you."

Never one to over think dangerous actions, Elena pulled the car off as far to the side of the road as she could, shut off the engine and unbuckled her seatbelt. "I'll remember once we get going."

"Yeah?" Damon scoffed, climbing out and following her to the trunk. "How's that work exactly? One minute you don't have a map in your head and the next it appears magically?"

"Muscle memory," she said confidently, reaching into the car. "My feet will remember where I've been. Here." She pushed a large cooler at him and slung a smaller backpack over her shoulder. "You do the carrying. I'll do the remembering."

"Hmm. Why do I not find this division of labor equitable?" He picked up the hamper, muttering just loud enough so she could hear. "Or reassuring."

Elena started off confidently, leaving Damon to heft the cooler and follow in her wake. The weight wasn't a problem, but shoving his way through the seriously overgrown canopy without the benefit of both hands quickly became less than amusing,

"You know," he panted, after putting up with a quarter mile of scrub and scree, "If we get any unforeseen company, say Little Red Riding Hood and her besties, stopping to ask for directions might not be a bad thing."

"Is the Big Bad Vampire afraid?"

"Only of mistaking your neck for an appetizer. Even with my eyesight, it's hard to see in this—OUCH!" Damon dodged the branch she failed to hold for him and caught it high across his upper thighs.

Elena stopped to give him an impatient, questioning glance.

He returned the scowl. "When you're not aiming, your accuracy is terrifying."

"Who says I wasn't aiming?" she asked mockingly.

Damon dropped the cooler and sped the short distance to her, planting himself between her body and a big tree. "You know," he murmured, deliberately dragging his eyes across her and enjoying the way her heart rate immediately responded, "Depending on what you have in mind for our date, you _might_ want certain parts of my anatomy to remain unsplintered."

He heard her very slight intake of breath and didn't bother to hide his satisfied grin. Whatever her feelings were for Damon, she was at the very least physically attracted to him. That could be a starting point for all kinds of fun things.

He didn't give her a chance to rebut the comment, speeding instead back to where the cooler lay. "Like my nose or legs, obviously," he continued, adding in a high pitched falsetto, "They're my best features."

"Your hands."

Damon paused in the middle of hoisting the cooler back up. "Huh?"

She gave him a look every bit as heated as the one he'd directed her way before turning around and resuming her blind forward march. "Your hands and lips. Keep them unbloodied."

The latent promise in her voice made him a whole different kind of hungry.

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	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

Elena pulled up short so unexpectedly that Damon, directly behind and cursing a blue streak, plowed straight into her. Up ahead he could only see more trees, but she'd apparently spotted something.

"Wait."

The tone of her voice, so different from the light, playful one that she'd been bantering in for the last 45 minutes, stilled any further complaints from him.

"Damon." Her body was a mere silhouette in the heavy evening shadows. "I—there's something I need to tell you before we get to our date."

He was tired and much hungrier than was healthy for someone with his unusual appetite, but for her, only for her, he conjured up a little bit more patience.

"Before Jeremy was born, my mom spent all day, every day with me. The playground, the zoo, shopping, the hairdresser, I was like her little mini-me. " Elena laughed slightly, but there was more sadness than humor in the sound. "When my brother came along, that total focus on me shifted, obviously, and I got really jealous." She looked at Damon. "Probably like you were when Stefan was born, maybe?"

"Stefan's birth didn't change much of anything," he replied bluntly. "I couldn't please my father before, and Stefan's perfect son impression was only one more measure I couldn't meet."

She looked away. "I'm sorry."

"So Jeremy was born and you got jealous," Damon prompted, unwilling to get off track conversationally yet again this evening. "What'd you do? Try to sell him or something?"

"I might have tried that once," she admitted ruefully, "Mostly though, I just acted out a lot and tried to be the center of attention again. One day I came home from kindergarten and found that Mom had loaded up our SUV with all kinds of camping gear. We let the boys have a bonding weekend while we took off and got lost tramping around the forest. We were so tired and hungry and she had to finally carry me …"

"Now there's an idea," Damon mused casually, fully onboard with the idea of having her in his arms when she wasn't fresh from a car accident or some other calamity.

She ignored his comment. "Anyway, while we were trying to find our SUV, we stumbled across this place I'm about to show you and it sort of became … mine." Elena's voice got soft. "Anytime I needed some space after that, this is where Mom would bring me. Up until I got to middle school, she'd camp with me. Then I suddenly didn't want her anywhere near me—" her voice broke.

"Hey." Damon grasped her shoulders and turned her toward him. She tried to avoid his gaze, but he placed his hands on either side of her neck and used his thumbs to gently lift her chin. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears and memories.

"I didn't want her near me," she repeated "so she'd drive us and then camp out somewhere close by, and I'd have the place all to myself. Then when I hit that bratty teenage phase—"

"You mean the one that has yet to end?"

To his relief, Elena laughed, this time genuinely. "I would drive myself out here to escape all the angst."

"Where is 'here'?"

"Damon," she wrapped her fingers around his wrists but didn't push him away, "I—I've never shared this place with anybody. Not Dad, not Bonnie or Jeremy or Caroline."

He frowned, wanting to ask but uncertain. "What about—"

Elena shook her head. "Not even him."

He seriously needed a minute to take that in, but she didn't give it to him.

She took a shaky breath, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "It's so cheesy, but I used to call this my happy place. Somehow I decided I was going to keep this as the one spot where nobody ever argued or yelled or caused drama about anything. Whenever I came here, it was to escape completely." Elena pulled away and wiped at her face, unaware of all the dirt she was smearing on it. "Before my parents died, I hadn't been here in several years. After they died—I just couldn't come back." She looked up at him intently. "Damon, nothing bad has ever happened to me here. Do you understand?"

"No." He stared at her in disbelief, feeling anger start to rise in him at the implications.

She opened her mouth and he cut her off,

"Let me see if I've got this straight. You didn't bring your brother here, so no sibling rivalry taints the place." He counted down on his fingers. "Bonnie and Caroline never came, so no girlfriend gossip was exchanged, but also no cat fighting. Your mom kept out of your way and your dad never came, so there weren't any dramatic parental confrontations. My guess is Matt never got a peek at whatever this place is, so there have never been any human boyfriend issues to mar the landscape. _And," _Damon continued emphatically, _"_you were smart enough not to bring Stefan. Hard as he tries to be a saint, my brother would've found a way to turn this place into drama central. By not coming here in the last years you've kept out the whole mess caused by Klaus and Katherine and Kol. So somehow, in your memories, there's never been any human or vampire drama here. I get that. What I don't understand is why, Elena. If this is your 'happy place,'" he made sarcastic air quotes, "your safe space, why would you finally disturb the peace by choosing to bring me?"

Elena listened to his rant, seemingly unperturbed. "Damon—"

"No. You're not thinking. You don't_ think_, you just act rashly and then you have to be rescued from your bad decision making." Damon dragged a hand through his hair in frustration, trying to show her everything she was throwing away. "Elena, you do _not _want me here. This was a terrible idea. Once I set foot in that space, everything changes and there won't be any fixing it."

"What if I want it to change?"

He groaned. "Elena, you don't—"

"Stop telling me what I don't want." She planted her hands on her hips and scowled. "I can't explain it, Damon, but you and I, we have this understanding … we've had it since the very first day."

He was suddenly back at the beginning, the one only he remembered, seeing her walking towards him on that darkened country lane. There'd been that moment she was the ghost of Katherine, but even before she'd corrected him, he'd known already that she was somebody different. It had taken him close to a year—a year of being tangled up in Katherine's games— to realize the specific physical disparity was that Elena's heart had a different rhythm. His responded to it in an entirely new way.

Elena went on, unaware of the diverging paths of their memories, "It's like we really _see _each other when the rest of the world somehow misses things."

She'd been confused by the stranger in the middle of the road, weirded out, and yet totally unafraid in a way that left Damon as baffled as he was intrigued-and a little worried. The worry had bothered him. Why should he be concerned about this young girl blithely wandering around oblivious to the monsters lurking?

Now, of course, he knew that if she _had _known what he was, she would likely have stood her ground and tried to talk her way out of it, trying to find some common ground between them. Risking her life while trying to reach the predator's humanity.

_So what do __**you **__want? _Nobody before her had ever bothered asking.

Elena touched his arm and he blinked, finding himself back on a darkened path with her and she was still so beautiful, her lips parted in the slightest hint of an exasperated smile, her eyes warm and so. Damn. Trusting.

"You drive me crazy half the time, but even at his most tormented Stefan doesn't feel this intensely." His eyes darted to her hand resting on his forearm, that small, delicate hand that was causing such disproportionately large shock waves through him. "Damon, you and I need this place. We need an escape from … everything."

"What if I told you you're my escape?" He leaned in close to her ear, his lips whispering just above the sensitive shell. "My _everything_."

She trembled but didn't pull away, her eyes locked with his. "Damon …"

"_Elena …"_

The bushes exploded around them raining debris every which way. He yanked Elena behind him, throwing up a screen with his body. The intruder plowed straight into the pair, unaware of the mere seconds he had left to live as Damon transitioned into a snarling beast, intent on protecting his Only.

"_Damon, wait!"_

Already plunging toward that tender neck, the vampire caught himself in midstrike, his fangs retracting marginally even as his fist tightened around the prey dangling in his inexorable grip.

"Damon, he's a kid." Her voice carved a path through the callous fury, pleading. "He's just a kid in the wrong place."

The scrawny boy writhed against the ever-tightening hand about to rupture his larynx, eyes bulging. His feet kicked desperately and he clawed at Damon's inhumanly strong fist, the reddening of his cheeks only accenting the acne pockmarking his skin.

"It was an accident, Damon. He didn't mean anything." Elena shoved her way forward as the kid started to go limp.

For an endless moment, he warred with undead need—_kill, feed_.

"I'm okay. Nothing happened." She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tried to pry his stranglehold free. "Damon, _please_."

An even stronger instinct took over, one he couldn't come close to naming. _Not in this place. _

With a muted growl, he dropped the kid to forest floor. "Someone needs to teach you not to come between a predator and his prey."

Elena knelt beside the boy, her heart rate still double the average rate. "Are you talking to him or to me?"

Damon crouched and nudged her aside. A quick examination confirmed no broken bones. Accelerated pulse and ragged breathing, semi-conscious, but unmaimed. "He's okay. I'll take him back to the road. Compel him to forget everything."

Her less-than-convinced look told him everything he needed to know about how this date ended.

"I won't hurt him," Damon snapped irritably. "Pimply boy scouts aren't nearly as appealing as sorority chicks."

"What about me?"

"You?" He lifted the kid with a grimace and tossed him over his shoulder. "You're _always _appealing, even with that _Will he or won't he_ permanent tattoo on your pretty face."

"What do I _do_, Damon?" She got to her feet slowly, eyes trained on the boy. "I can't keep up if you're going to do the vampire speed thing. Should I wait here or –"

"Or try and find your way back without me?" He snorted derisively. "Don't even _think_ about it, Elena. Your GPS memory magic was valid for one use only. Sit tight. Eat. I'll speed you back to the car soon as I dump him."

He vanished into the trees, a familiar angry, broken voice of regret drumming through his head.

TVDTVDTVD


End file.
